


To Be by Your Side

by nostalgicatsea



Category: Marvel Noir
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-12-26 06:58:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12053712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgicatsea/pseuds/nostalgicatsea
Summary: Steve knew better than to believe that Tony Stark could ever love him. But it was okay. He knew he was lucky to even have all this.





	To Be by Your Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictionforlife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionforlife/gifts).



> Inspired by [this lovely piece of art](http://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/130481367585) by fictionforlife, whose Noir works are a gift to this fandom.
> 
> This fic can also be found on [Tumblr](http://nostalgicatsea.tumblr.com/post/151305052204/ireallyshouldbedrawing-inktober-2015-0431).

The night was unusually chilly for this time of year, summer still unable to fully shake off winter’s cloak though it was late June in Italy, and Steve was glad for the fire even if the shadows flickering across the page made it difficult for him to write. It was too small to provide good lighting, but its dim glow made everything cozy and intimate, shrinking down the entire world to the perimeter of their camp so that it seemed as though nothing else existed in the universe but the fire and him and Tony. 

Something warm settled in the pit of his stomach at that, a small burning ember that protected him from the frosty Alpine air better than the blanket around his shoulders and the fire in front of him, and he felt grateful, immensely grateful, that he was here next to Tony at that very moment, never mind how tired and cold he was or how he seemed to find himself in grave danger nearly every other day. It felt right, as if his entire life had been leading up to being by Tony’s side even though he knew thinking that was absurd—luck and Tony’s generosity had gotten him here, not destiny or anything he’d done in particular. 

Tony nudged Steve’s knee with his. “Penny for your thoughts?” he asked. He’d been busy tending the fire while Steve wrote down the day’s activities in his journal, but he was looking at him now, a small smile on his face. It was different from the ones he had on in the papers and at the few parties he’d dragged Steve to, softer and more private, and Steve’s heart ached painfully at the sight. 

He wondered if Tony knew how it made people feel when he looked at them like that, as though his smile was meant just for them and no one else, but looked away before he could do something as reckless as reaching out and holding Tony’s hand.

It was one thing to want Tony and quite another to act upon those feelings.

“I was just thinking about how I never did anything like this before,” he decided to say.

“What, jumping off a cliff? Getting chased out of a temple by a wrathful spirit?” Tony leaned back from the fire now, bracing his hands against the ground, one hand so close to Steve that his fingertips almost brushed Steve’s thigh. His eyes glinted with amusement.

“I was going to say camping, but that too.” Steve shrugged, looking down at his lap at the tiny, cramped notes he could barely make out and the sketch he’d drawn earlier of the underground temple ruins they’d come across that morning. He marveled, not for the first time, at the fact that these were things he’d actually seen with his own two eyes, things he lived through. “I never thought I’d be here.”

 _With you_ , he added silently, and he wanted so desperately to say it that he was afraid it’d slip out of his mouth on his next breath. 

Tony didn’t answer him immediately, just looked at him long enough that Steve began to worry that Tony had heard his unspoken words and knew precisely what they meant. 

“In Italy,” he was about to say when Tony finally spoke.

“Can’t imagine having anyone else by my side,” he said, and his voice was steady, almost careful, but his eyes so impossibly fond that Steve let himself dream, let himself pretend just this once that Tony meant it in the way he wanted him to. 

In another world, in another lifetime, maybe he could lean over and kiss Tony, and it would be all right. Maybe he could drop his hand over Tony’s and curl their fingers together, and it would be okay. 

Maybe he could love Tony and have Tony love him back.

“There’s no place I’d rather be,” he answered instead, more honestly than Tony would ever know, because it was enough, more than enough, just being here, by Tony’s side.


End file.
